It was the late first-half goal which took the wind out of Chippa United’s sails in their 1-0 defeat to Orlando Pirates in their Betway Premiership clash at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium on Wednesday night, coach Thabo September said.
Pirates got their goal seconds from halftime through a corner kick as Nkosinathi Sibisi broke through a Chippa barrier and sailed through the air to head the ball home at the near post.
The deflated Gqeberha side could not live up to their first-half performance in the second half.
September said Sibis’'s goal had demoralised his players.
Chippa went toe-to-toe with the Sea Robbers in the first stanza of the match, allowing them little space to play.
But things changed in the second half as Pirates emerged as the more dominant side.
“We had a good approach in the first half. We stood our own. But when you concede towards the end of the first half, that demoralises you,” September said.
“However, we tried to pick it up and find another different approach in the second half, but it wasn’t to be.
“We brought one striker on just to get a different target when it was not working.
“Pirates managed the game very well in the second half.
“We then brought in a second striker and tried to play a diamond in the midfield so that the full-back could bring balls inside their box.
“We tried and the main thing is that we did our best and sometimes your best is not enough.
“I am proud of the first half and the fight towards the end of the game.”
Despite the setback, Chippa remain ninth on the log with 22 points from 19 games.
The win saw Pirates bounce back from their disappointing 2-0 defeat to Marumo Gallants, a result which had tripped up their pursuit of closing the gap with log leaders Mamelodi Sundowns.
Wednesday night’s victory played them back into trying to close the gap with Sundowns, who played to a 1-1 draw against Golden Arrows.
Despite Wednesday night’s draw, the Brazilians are 16 points ahead of Pirates, but the Bucs have four games in hand including what could be a crucial showdown with Sundowns.
Bucs coach Jose Riveiro remains optimistic.
“It’s still a long way to go,” he said.
“It's difficult to know where you are when you have three, four or five games in hand.
“We want to be optimistic and think we will collect all the points.
“Because we don’t know, they only thing we can do is focus on the next game, and that is what we try to do to the best of our capacity.
“To just think that every game for us is an opportunity to dream, to do something big and that is the way we are facing the games.
“I try to express the same thing to my players, to not look at the table because the reality is still not there.
“It will be there soon, but right now it’s just 16 teams trying to find a position on the log.”
The Herald
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